"I grant it, but it is because people know that a great deal of money has been subscribed, and do not know the uses to which it is applied. They hear reports read, and find perhaps that the light of the Gospel has but as yet glimmered in one place or another; that in other places all labour has hitherto been thrown away. They forget that it is the grain of mustard-seed which is to become a great tree, and spread its branches; they wish for immoderate returns, and are therefore disappointed. Of course I cannot give an opinion as to the manner in which the missions are conducted in other countries; but as I have visited most of the missions in these parts, I can honestly assert, and I think you have already yourselves seen enough to agree with me, that the money intrusted to the societies is not thrown away or lavishly expended; the missionaries labour with their own hands, and almost provide for their own support." "There I agree with you, Swinton," replied Alexander; "but what are the objections raised against them? for now that I have seen them with my own eyes, I cannot imagine what they can be." "The objections which I have heard, and have so often attempted to refute, are, that the generality of missionaries are a fanatical class of men, who are more anxious to inculcate the peculiar tenets of their own sects and denominations than the religion of our Saviour; that most of them are uneducated and vulgar men--many of them very intemperate and very injudicious--some few of them of bad moral character; and that their exertions, if they have used them--whether to civilise or to Christianise the people among whom they are sent--have not been followed by any commensurate results." "And now let us have your replies to these many objections." "It is no doubt true that the missionaries who are labouring among the savages of the interior are, many, if not most of them, people of limited education. Indeed, the major portion of them have been brought up as mechanics. But I much question whether men of higher attainments and more cultivated minds would be better adapted to meet the capacities of unintellectual barbarians. A highly-educated man may be appreciated among those who are educated themselves; but how can he be appreciated by the savage? On the contrary, the savage looks with much more respect upon a man who can forge iron, repair his weapons, and excite his astonishment by his cunning workmanship; for then the savage perceives and acknowledges his superiority, which in the man of intellect he would never discover.